Painting with Life
by CherriBerri
Summary: An art lesson from Itachi to his baby brother.


**__Cherry:**Long time no update. But alas, life is cruel. Another Naruto-tid-bit. Because I never get sick of the series, no matter how bad it gets. :]

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><p><strong>Painting with Life<strong>  
><em>a naruto fanfic by <strong>Cherry<strong>_

Original story/characters by _Kishimoto Masashi_

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><p>Would the moon bleed? Sasuke wonders as he glances over his shoulders at the oddly coloured shape in the sky. Something, <em>something<em> doesn't feel right. So he does as little boys are wont to do when things don't feel right—he calls for his big brother. Because big brother is always there and can make anything, everything, _everything_ better again.

Only silence as the decency to answer Sasuke's calls.

Dark ink dries against the walls of his favourite shops, the soils of his world, smelling of metal and fear. Aunty and Uncle of the shop are the first ones he sees, bundles of clothing and hair scattered on the ground; shuriken pepper the walls like commas.

A monster growls in Sasuke's chest, whispering into his ear, reaching out its great clawed fingers to encase his pattering, smattering heart, pushing out against its cage of bones. _They're _dead._dead._gone._all…eveysingleoneofthem…__**gone**_**. **

Crows caw and cackle at him from high on telephone poles where no one can reach, cow-bell-beaks clanking against the vast above, devoid of stars. The moon Sasuke had grown to love, with his brother, and his father, and his mother, that same moon they'd used to look up at, leers down upon the street, bustling with ghosts and cries that will never fade away.

Sasuke has no time to spare the ugly, poppie-eyed creatures a glare or glance, but perhaps several kunai later just to shut up their laughter. The sound bleeds into his ears as all feelings bleed out, dripping down his arms, his back, his legs and disappearing into the ground, joining the life-ink of all those he had once loved.

_No, no, no! He'd been a good boy! He'd been a good boy because Papa had said so. Papa had been proud! He'd worked so hard, so hard, so so hard to earn a smile, a pat, an encouraging word. What had been wrong? What could he have possibly done to deserve _any_ of this?_

Tears, oh tears like melted chocolate on a summer's day shimmer down his cheeks. Thick and fast, wave after wave after wave, as he processes the smell of what would have been a well-cooked dinner and the distinct grate of his father's tobacco pipe. They dance around his head, giggling and spinning circles, tugging on the ends of his spikey locks, daring him to _go on, go on and open those doors. See what's behind them, you know you want to…_

But his fingers don't want this, his brain doesn't want this, his eyes, his ears, his nose don't want this! Nothing but those little voices that twitter around his head want this, and yet, and _yet_…

He slides the door open.

An army of seething, cackling, jibber-jabbering shadows assault him. Behind them, behind all the foot soldiers and cavalry and rows and rows of horrific little animals that live off of fresh, warm life-ink that bubbles up and out from his Papa and Momma, one atop the other in a mockery of pick-up-sticks… stands his big brother.

That _is_ his big brother… right? He can't be anyone else—Sasuke knows him too well to mistake him. He looks like big brother, he smells like big brother… he _doesn't_ feel like big brother or have eyes like big brother. _No, no it's all wrong! This can't be big brother! Big brothers don't kill entire clans of people, splashing life-ink over the walls. Big brothers don't stand over armies of creepy-crawly-cackly shadows that sip and suck on black-cherry-juice leaking from his parents. _

… Do they?

_Brother_… he whispers the word as if it's not his own. In truth, it really isn't. Sasuke's big brother is gone. This is another big brother or maybe just one more cruel-faced ninja here to rip and shred what moonbeam strings had held their family together, kept them tangled so that they could not escaped from one another. Some people—_stupid people_—had told Sasuke, once._once._onceuponatime, that blood and love connects family so that nothing can tear them apart.

Liars, _liars!_ Who deserve to have much more than just their pants set on fire.

Sasuke knows better now, oh yes he does. Sasuke knows that blood is nothing-nothing_-not worth a single damn thing,_ and that bonds and ties only weigh people down. _There has to be a reason they are called bonds and ties to begin with_.

His almost-big-brother had taught him that; the last lesson he'd ever teach, one that would shape and shake an entire lifetime, one that would jerk Sasuke's world from right under his little feet so that he'd fall on his face into the real world, where the nasties and uglies and creepy-crawly-cacklies can't be kept at bay by words soaked in effervescent love.

A wisp of a memory is all he needs. The smell of stolen lives is more than enough a reminder for Sasuke now.

The sky doesn't have to hold back like he does, oh no, no, the sky is allowed to do whatever it likes. So it pours and pours and pours, as if it is determined to wash away all the dried life-ink, painting darkness and nightmares onto the walls and the streets. It was beautiful, yes—_beautiful_. In a dreadful, frightful kind of way.

Tugging his small hand across the murals of the dead, painted with life, Sasuke learns to appreciate the weakness of human life. _How breakable, how easily breakable._ And he swears, drawing shapes and symbols into the already sin-filled pictures, that one day, he will also command his own army of creepy-crawly-cacklies and he would make that almost-big-brother of his wonder if the moon can bleed.

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><p><strong>Cherry:<strong> Hope you enjoyed it. Chibi!Sasuke is always adorable. Please leave a **review** if you enjoyed it... or not. Oh, and Happy Holidays, everyone. ;]


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